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The Advent of Divine Justice
"To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful ..."
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To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout
the United States and Canada.
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Best-beloved brothers and sisters
in the love of Bahá'u'lláh:
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It would be difficult indeed to adequately express the
feelings of irrepressible joy and exultation that flood my
heart every time I pause to contemplate the ceaseless evidences
of the dynamic energy which animates the stalwart
pioneers of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh in the execution
of the Plan committed to their charge. The signature of the
contract, by your elected national representatives, signalizing
the opening of the final phase of the greatest enterprise
ever launched by the followers of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh in
the West, no less than the extremely heartening progress recorded
in the successive reports of their National Teaching
Committee, attest, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the fidelity,
the vigor, and the thoroughness with which you are
conducting the manifold operations which the evolution of
the Seven Year Plan must necessarily involve. In both of its
aspects, and in all its details, it is being prosecuted with exemplary
regularity and precision, with undiminished efficiency,
and commendable dispatch.
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The resourcefulness which the national representatives
of the American believers have, in recent months, so strikingly
demonstrated, as evidenced by the successive measures
they have adopted, has been matched by the loyal, the
unquestioning and generous support accorded them by all
those whom they represent, at every critical stage, and with
every fresh advance, in the discharge of their sacred duties.
Such close interaction, such complete cohesion, such continual
harmony and fellowship between the various agencies
that contribute to the organic life, and constitute the basic
framework, of every properly functioning Bahá'í community,
is a phenomenon which offers a striking contrast to the
disruptive tendencies which the discordant elements of
present-day society so tragically manifest. Whereas every
apparent trial with which the unfathomable wisdom of the
Almighty deems it necessary to afflict His chosen community
serves only to demonstrate afresh its essential solidarity
and to consolidate its inward strength, each of the
successive crises in the fortunes of a decadent age exposes
more convincingly than the one preceding it the corrosive
influences that are fast sapping the vitality and undermining
the basis of its declining institutions.
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For such demonstrations of the interpositions of an
ever-watchful Providence they who stand identified with
the Community of the Most Great Name must feel eternally
grateful. From every fresh token of His unfailing blessing on
the one hand, and of His visitation on the other, they cannot
but derive immense hope and courage. Alert to seize every
opportunity which the revolutions of the wheel of destiny
within their Faith offers them, and undismayed by the prospect
of spasmodic convulsions that must sooner or later fatally
affect those who have refused to embrace its light,
they, and those who will labor after them, must press forward
until the processes now set in motion will have each
spent its force and contributed its share towards the birth of
the Order now stirring in the womb of a travailing age.
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These recurrent crises which, with ominous frequency
and resistless force, are afflicting an ever-increasing portion
of the human race must of necessity continue, however impermanently,
to exercise, in a certain measure, their baleful
influence upon a world community which has spread its
ramifications to the uttermost ends of the earth. How can
the beginnings of a world upheaval, unleashing forces that
are so gravely deranging the social, the religious, the political,
and the economic equilibrium of organized society,
throwing into chaos and confusion political systems, racial
doctrines, social conceptions, cultural standards, religious
associations, and trade relationships--how can such agitations,
on a scale so vast, so unprecedented, fail to produce
any repercussions on the institutions of a Faith of such tender
age whose teachings have a direct and vital bearing on
each of these spheres of human life and conduct?
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Little wonder, therefore, if they who are holding aloft
the banner of so pervasive a Faith, so challenging a Cause,
find themselves affected by the impact of these world-shaking
forces. Little wonder if they find that in the midst of
this whirlpool of contending passions their freedom has
been curtailed, their tenets contemned, their institutions assaulted,
their motives maligned, their authority jeopardized,
their claim rejected.
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In the heart of the European continent a community
which, as predicted by `Abdu'l-Bahá, is destined, by virtue
of its spiritual potentialities and geographical situation, to
radiate the splendor of the light of the Faith on the countries
that surround it, has been momentarily eclipsed through the
restrictions which a regime that has sorely misapprehended
its purpose and function has chosen to impose upon it. Its
voice, alas, is now silenced, its institutions dissolved, its literature
banned, its archives confiscated, and its meetings
suspended.
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In central Asia, in the city enjoying the unique distinction
of having been chosen by `Abdu'l-Bahá as the home of
the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world, as well as
in the towns and villages of the province to which it belongs,
the sore-pressed Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, as a result of
the extraordinary and unique vitality which, in the course of
several decades, it has consistently manifested, finds itself at
the mercy of forces which, alarmed at its rising power, are
now bent on reducing it to utter impotence. Its Temple,
though still used for purposes of Bahá'í worship, has been
expropriated, its Assemblies and committees disbanded, its
teaching activities crippled, its chief promoters deported,
and not a few of its most enthusiastic supporters, both men
and women, imprisoned.
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In the land of its birth, wherein reside the immense
majority of its followers--a country whose capital has been
hailed by Bahá'u'lláh as the "mother of the world" and the
"dayspring of the joy of mankind"--a civil authority, as yet undivorced
officially from the paralyzing influences of an antiquated,
a fanatical, and outrageously corrupt clergy, pursues
relentlessly its campaign of repression against the adherents
of a Faith which it has for well-nigh a century striven unsuccessfully
to suppress. Indifferent to the truth that the members
of this innocent and proscribed community can justly
claim to rank as among the most disinterested, the most
competent, and the most ardent lovers of their native land,
contemptuous of their high sense of world citizenship
which the advocates of an excessive and narrow nationalism
can never hope to appreciate, such an authority refuses to
grant to a Faith which extends its spiritual jurisdiction over
well-nigh six hundred local communities, and which numerically
outnumbers the adherents of either the Christian,
the Jewish, or the Zoroastrian Faiths in that land, the necessary
legal right to enforce its laws, to administer its affairs, to
conduct its schools, to celebrate its festivals, to circulate its
literature, to solemnize its rites, to erect its edifices, and to
safeguard its endowments.
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And now recently in the Holy Land itself, the heart and
nerve-center of a world-embracing Faith, the fires of racial
animosity, of fratricidal strife, of unabashed terrorism, have
lit a conflagration that gravely interferes, on the one hand,
with that flow of pilgrims that constitutes the lifeblood of
that center, and suspends, on the other, the various projects
that had been initiated in connection with the preservation
and extension of the areas surrounding the sacred Spots it
enshrines. The safety of the small community of resident
believers, faced by the rising tide of lawlessness, has been
imperiled, its status as a neutral and distinct community indirectly
challenged, and its freedom to carry out certain of
its observances curtailed. A series of murderous assaults, alternating
with outbursts of bitter fanaticism, both racial and
religious, involving the leaders as well as the followers of
the three leading Faiths in that distracted country, have, at
times, threatened to sever all normal communications both
within its confines as well as with the outside world. Perilous
though the situation has been, the Bahá'í Holy Places,
the object of the adoration of a world-encircling Faith, have,
notwithstanding their number and exposed position, and
though to outward seeming deprived of any means of protection,
been vouchsafed a preservation little short of miraculous.
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A world, torn with conflicting passions, and perilously
disintegrating from within, finds itself confronted, at so crucial
an epoch in its history, by the rising fortunes of an infant
Faith, a Faith that, at times, seems to be drawn into its
controversies, entangled by its conflicts, eclipsed by its gathering
shadows, and overpowered by the mounting tide of its
passions. In its very heart, within its cradle, at the seat of its
first and venerable Temple, in one of its hitherto flourishing
and potentially powerful centers, the as-yet unemancipated
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh seems indeed to have retreated before
the onrushing forces of violence and disorder to which humanity
is steadily falling a victim. The strongholds of such a
Faith, one by one and day after day, are to outward seeming
being successively isolated, assaulted and captured. As the
lights of liberty flicker and go out, as the din of discord
grows louder and louder every day, as the fires of fanaticism
flame with increasing fierceness in the breasts of men, as the
chill of irreligion creeps relentlessly over the soul of mankind,
the limbs and organs that constitute the body of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh appear, in varying measure, to have become
afflicted with the crippling influences that now hold
in their grip the whole of the civilized world.
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How clearly and strikingly the following words of
`Abdu'l-Bahá are being demonstrated at this hour: "The darkness
of error that has enveloped the East and the West is, in this
most great cycle, battling with the light of Divine Guidance. Its
swords and its spears are very sharp and pointed; its army keenly
bloodthirsty." "This day," He, in another passage has written,
"the powers of all the leaders of religion are directed towards the
dispersion of the congregation of the All-Merciful, and the shattering
of the Divine Edifice. The hosts of the world, whether material,
cultural or political are from every side launching their assault, for
the Cause is great, very great. Its greatness is, in this day, clear and
manifest to men's eyes."
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The one chief remaining citadel, the mighty arm which
still raises aloft the standard of an unconquerable Faith, is
none other than the blessed community of the followers of
the Most Great Name in the North American continent. By
its works, and through the unfailing protection vouchsafed
to it by an almighty Providence, this distinguished member
of the body of the constantly interacting Bahá'í communities
of East and West, bids fair to be universally regarded as the
cradle, as well as the stronghold, of that future New World
Order, which is at once the promise and the glory of the Dispensation
associated with the name of Bahá'u'lláh.
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Let anyone inclined to either belittle the unique station
conferred upon this community, or to question the role it
will be called upon to play in the days to come, ponder the
implication of these pregnant and highly illuminating words
uttered by `Abdu'l-Bahá, and addressed to it at a time when
the fortunes of a world groaning beneath the burden of a
devastating war had reached their lowest ebb. "The continent
of America," He so significantly wrote, "is, in the eyes of the one
true God, the land wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed,
where the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled, where
the righteous will abide, and the free assemble."
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Already, the community of the believers of the North
American continent--at once the prime mover and pattern
of the future communities which the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh is
destined to raise up throughout the length and breadth
of the Western Hemisphere--has, despite the prevailing
gloom, shown its capacity to be recognized as the torchbearer
of that light, the repository of those mysteries, the exponent
of that righteousness and the sanctuary of that freedom.
To what other light can these above-quoted words
possibly allude, if not to the light of the glory of the Golden
Age of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh? What mysteries could `Abdu'l-Bahá
have contemplated except the mysteries of that
embryonic World Order now evolving within the matrix of
His Administration? What righteousness if not the righteousness
whose reign that Age and that Order can alone establish?
What freedom but the freedom which the proclamation
of His sovereignty in the fullness of time must
bestow?
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The community of the organized promoters of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh in the American continent--the spiritual
descendants of the dawn-breakers of an heroic Age,
who by their death proclaimed the birth of that Faith--
must, in turn, usher in, not by their death but through living
sacrifice, that promised World Order, the shell ordained to
enshrine that priceless jewel, the world civilization, of which
the Faith itself is the sole begetter. While its sister communities
are bending beneath the tempestuous winds that beat
upon them from every side, this community, preserved by
the immutable decrees of the omnipotent Ordainer and deriving
continual sustenance from the mandate with which
the Tablets of the Divine Plan have invested it, is now busily
engaged in laying the foundations and in fostering the
growth of those institutions which are to herald the approach
of the Age destined to witness the birth and rise of
the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
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A community, relatively negligible in its numerical
strength; separated by vast distances from both the focal-center
of its Faith and the land wherein the preponderating
mass of its fellow-believers reside; bereft in the main of material
resources and lacking in experience and in prominence;
ignorant of the beliefs, concepts and habits of those
peoples and races from which its spiritual Founders have
sprung; wholly unfamiliar with the languages in which its
sacred Books were originally revealed; constrained to place
its sole reliance upon an inadequate rendering of only a
fragmentary portion of the literature embodying its laws, its
tenets, and its history; subjected from its infancy to tests of
extreme severity, involving, at times, the defection of some
of its most prominent members; having to contend, ever
since its inception, and in an ever-increasing measure, with
the forces of corruption, of moral laxity, and ingrained prejudice--
such a community, in less than half a century, and
unaided by any of its sister communities, whether in the
East or in the West, has, by virtue of the celestial potency
with which an all-loving Master has abundantly endowed
it, lent an impetus to the onward march of the Cause it has
espoused which the combined achievements of its coreligionists
in the West have failed to rival.
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What other community, it can confidently be asked,
has been instrumental in fixing the pattern, and in imparting
the original impulse, to those administrative institutions that
constitute the vanguard of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh?
What other community has been capable of demonstrating,
with such consistency, the resourcefulness, the discipline,
the iron determination, the zeal and perseverance, the devotion
and fidelity, so indispensable to the erection and the
continued extension of the framework within which those
nascent institutions can alone multiply and mature? What
other community has proved itself to be fired by so noble a
vision, or willing to rise to such heights of self-sacrifice, or
ready to achieve so great a measure of solidarity, as to be
able to raise, in so short a time and in the course of such
crucial years, an edifice that can well deserve to be regarded
as the greatest contribution ever made by the West to the
Cause of Bahá'u'lláh? What other community can justifiably
lay claim to have succeeded, through the unsupported efforts
of one of its humble members, in securing the spontaneous
allegiance of Royalty to its Cause, and in winning
such marvelous and written testimonies to its truth? What
other community has shown the foresight, the organizing
ability, the enthusiastic eagerness, that have been responsible
for the establishment and multiplication, throughout its
territory, of those initial schools which, as time goes by, will,
on the one hand, evolve into powerful centers of Bahá'í
learning, and, on the other, provide a fertile recruiting
ground for the enrichment and consolidation of its teaching
force? What other community has produced pioneers combining
to such a degree the essential qualities of audacity, of
consecration, of tenacity, of self-renunciation, and unstinted
devotion, that have prompted them to abandon their
homes, and forsake their all, and scatter over the surface of
the globe, and hoist in its uttermost corners the triumphant
banner of Bahá'u'lláh? Who else but the members of this
community have won the eternal distinction of being the
first to raise the call of Yá Bahá'u'l-Abhá in such highly important
and widely scattered centers and territories as the
hearts of both the British and French empires, Germany, the
Far East, the Balkan States, the Scandinavian countries, Latin
America, the Islands of the Pacific, South Africa, Australia
and New Zealand, and now more recently the Baltic States?
Who else but those same pioneers have shown themselves
ready to undertake the labor, to exercise the patience, and to
provide the funds, required for the translation and publication,
in no less than forty languages, of their sacred literature,
the dissemination of which is an essential prerequisite
to any effectively organized campaign of teaching? What
other community can lay claim to have had a decisive share
in the worldwide efforts that have been exerted for the safeguarding
and the extension of the immediate surroundings
of its holy shrines, as well as for the preliminary acquisition
of the future sites of its international institutions at its world
center? What other community can to its eternal credit claim
to have been the first to frame its national and local constitutions,
thereby laying down the fundamental lines of the
twin charters designed to regulate the activities, define the
functions, and safeguard the rights, of its institutions? What
other community can boast of having simultaneously acquired
and legally secured the basis of its national endowments,
thus paving the way for a similar action on the part
of its local communities? What other community has
achieved the supreme distinction of having obtained, long
before any of its sister communities had envisaged such a
possibility, the necessary documents assuring the recognition,
by both the federal and state authorities, of its Spiritual
Assemblies and national endowments? And finally what
other community has had the privilege, and been granted
the means, to succor the needy, to plead the cause of the
downtrodden, and to intervene so energetically for the safeguarding
of Bahá'í edifices and institutions in countries such
as Persia, Egypt, `Iráq, Russia, and Germany, where, at various
times, its fellow-believers have had to suffer the rigors
of both religious and racial persecution?
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Such a matchless and brilliant record of service, extending
over a period of well-nigh twenty years, and so
closely interwoven with the interest and fortunes of such a
large section of the worldwide Bahá'í community, deserves
to rank as a memorable chapter in the history of the Formative
Period of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. Reinforced and enriched
as it is by the memory of the American believers' earlier
achievements, such a record is in itself convincing
testimony to their ability to befittingly shoulder the responsibilities
which any task may impose upon them in the future.
To overrate the significance of these manifold services
would be well-nigh impossible. To appraise correctly their
value, and dilate on their merits and immediate consequences,
is a task which only a future Bahá'í historian can
properly discharge. I can only for the present place on record
my profound conviction that a community capable of
showing forth such deeds, of evincing such a spirit, of rising
to such heights, cannot but be already possessed of such potentialities
as will enable it to vindicate, in the fullness of
time, its right to be acclaimed as the chief creator and champion
of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh.
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Magnificent as has been this record, reminiscent as it is,
in some of its aspects, of the exploits with which the dawn-breakers
of an heroic Age have proclaimed the birth of the
Faith itself, the task associated with the name of this privileged
community is, far from approaching its climax, only
beginning to unfold. What the American believers have,
within the space of almost fifty years, achieved is infinitesimal
when compared to the magnitude of the tasks ahead of
them. The rumblings of that catastrophic upheaval, which is
to proclaim, at one and the same time, the death-pangs of
the old order and the birth-pangs of the new, indicate both
the steady approach, as well as the awe-inspiring character,
of those tasks.
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The virtual establishment of the Administrative Order
of their Faith, the erection of its framework, the fashioning
of its instruments, and the consolidation of its subsidiary institutions,
was the first task committed to their charge, as an
organized community called into being by the Will, and under
the instructions, of `Abdu'l-Bahá. Of this initial task
they have acquitted themselves with marvelous promptitude,
fidelity, and vigor. No sooner had they created and
correlated the various and necessary agencies for the efficient
conduct of any policy they might subsequently wish to
initiate, than they addressed themselves, with equal zest
and consecration, to the next more arduous task of erecting
the superstructure of an edifice the cornerstone of which
`Abdu'l-Bahá Himself had laid. And when that feat was
achieved, this community, alive to the passionate pleas, exhortations,
and promises recorded in the Tablets of the Divine
Plan, resolved to undertake yet another task, which in
its scope and spiritual potentialities is sure to outshine any
of the works they have already accomplished. Launching
with unquenchable enthusiasm and dauntless courage the
Seven Year Plan, as the first and practical step towards the
fulfillment of the mission prescribed in those epoch-making
Tablets, they entered, with a spirit of renewed consecration,
upon their dual task, the consummation of which, it is
hoped, will synchronize with the celebration of the centenary
of the birth of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. Well aware that
every advance made in the external ornamentation of their
majestic edifice would directly react on the progress of the
teaching campaign initiated by them in both the northern
and southern American continents, and realizing that every
victory gained in the teaching field would, in its turn, facilitate
the work, and hasten the completion, of their Temple,
they are now pressing on, with courage and faith, in their
efforts to discharge, in both of its phases, their obligations
under the Plan they have dedicated themselves to execute.
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Let them not, however, imagine that the carrying out
of the Seven Year Plan, coinciding as it does with the termination
of the first century of the Bahá'í era, signifies either
the termination of, or even an interruption in, the work
which the unerring Hand of the Almighty is directing them
to perform. The opening of the second century of the Bahá'í
era must needs disclose greater vistas, usher in further
stages, and witness the initiation of plans more far-reaching
than any as yet conceived. The Plan on which is now focused
the attention, the aspirations, and the resources of the
entire community of the American believers should be
viewed as a mere beginning, as a trial of strength, a stepping-stone
to a crusade of still greater magnitude, if the duties
and responsibilities with which the Author of the Divine
Plan has invested them are to be honorably and entirely fulfilled.
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For the consummation of the present Plan can result in
no more than the formation of at least one center in each of
the Republics of the Western Hemisphere, whereas the duties
prescribed in those Tablets call for a wider diffusion,
and imply the scattering of a far greater and more representative
number of the members of the North American Bahá'í
community over the entire surface of the New World. It is
the undoubted mission of the American believers, therefore,
to carry forward into the second century the glorious work
initiated in the closing years of the first. Not until they have
played their part in guiding the activities of these isolated
and newly fledged centers, and in fostering their capacity to
initiate in their turn institutions, both local and national,
modeled on their own, can they be satisfied to have adequately
discharged their immediate obligations under `Abdu'l-Bahá's
divinely revealed Plan.
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Nor should it for a moment be supposed that the completion
of a task which aims at the multiplication of Bahá'í
centers and the provision of the assistance and guidance
necessary for the establishment of the Administrative Order
of the Bahá'í Faith in the countries of Latin America realizes
in its entirety the scheme visualized for them by `Abdu'l-Bahá.
A perusal, however perfunctory, of those Tablets embodying
His Plan will instantly reveal a scope for their activities
that stretches far beyond the confines of the Western
Hemisphere. With their inter-American tasks and responsibilities
virtually discharged, their intercontinental mission
enters upon its most glorious and decisive phase. "The moment
this Divine Message," `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself has written,
"is carried forward by the American believers from the shores of
America and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of
Asia, of Africa, and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the
Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon
the throne of an everlasting dominion."
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And who knows but that when this colossal task has
been accomplished a greater, a still more superb mission, incomparable
in its splendor, and foreordained for them by
Bahá'u'lláh, may not be thrust upon them? The glories of
such a mission are of such dazzling splendor, the circumstances
attending it so remote, and the contemporary events
with the culmination of which it is so closely knit in such a
state of flux, that it would be premature to attempt, at the
present time, any accurate delineation of its features. Suffice
it to say that out of the turmoil and tribulations of these "latter
years" opportunities undreamt of will be born, and circumstances
unpredictable created, that will enable, nay impel,
the victorious prosecutors of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Plan, to
add, through the part they will play in the unrolling of the
New World Order, fresh laurels to the crown of their servitude
to the threshold of Bahá'u'lláh.
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Nor should any of the manifold opportunities, of a totally
different order, be allowed to pass unnoticed which the
evolution of the Faith itself, whether at its world center, or
in the North American continent, or even in the most outlying
regions of the earth, must create, calling once again
upon the American believers to play a part, no less conspicuous
than the share they have previously had in their collective
contributions to the propagation of the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh.
I can only for the moment cite at random certain of
these opportunities which stand out preeminently, in any
attempt to survey the possibilities of the future: The election
of the International House of Justice and its establishment in
the Holy Land, the spiritual and administrative center of the
Bahá'í world, together with the formation of its auxiliary
branches and subsidiary institutions; the gradual erection of
the various dependencies of the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of
the West, and the intricate issues involving the establishment
and the extension of the structural basis of Bahá'í community
life; the codification and promulgation of the ordinances
of the Most Holy Book, necessitating the formation,
in certain countries of the East, of properly constituted and
officially recognized courts of Bahá'í law; the building of the
third Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the Bahá'í world in the outskirts
of the city of Tihrán, to be followed by the rise of a similar
House of Worship in the Holy Land itself; the deliverance of
Bahá'í communities from the fetters of religious orthodoxy
in such Islamic countries as Persia, `Iráq, and Egypt, and the
consequent recognition, by the civil authorities in those
states, of the independent status and religious character of
Bahá'í National and Local Assemblies; the precautionary
and defensive measures to be devised, coordinated, and carried
out to counteract the full force of the inescapable attacks
which the organized efforts of ecclesiastical organizations
of various denominations will progressively launch
and relentlessly pursue; and, last but not least, the multitudinous
issues that must be faced, the obstacles that must be
overcome, and the responsibilities that must be assumed, to
enable a sore-tried Faith to pass through the successive
stages of unmitigated obscurity, of active repression, and of
complete emancipation, leading in turn to its being acknowledged
as an independent Faith, enjoying the status of
full equality with its sister religions, to be followed by its establishment
and recognition as a State religion, which in turn
must give way to its assumption of the rights and prerogatives
associated with the Bahá'í state, functioning in the plenitude
of its powers, a stage which must ultimately culminate
in the emergence of the worldwide Bahá'í Commonwealth,
animated wholly by the spirit, and operating solely in direct
conformity with the laws and principles of Bahá'u'lláh.
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The challenge offered by these opportunities the
American believers, I feel confident, will, in addition to their
answer to the teaching call voiced by `Abdu'l-Bahá in His
Tablets, unhesitatingly take up, and will, with their traditional
fearlessness, tenacity, and efficiency, so respond to it
as to confirm, before all the world, their title and rank as the
champion-builders of the mightiest institutions of the Faith
of Bahá'u'lláh.
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Dearly beloved friends! Though the task be long and
arduous, yet the prize which the All-Bountiful Bestower has
chosen to confer upon you is of such preciousness that
neither tongue nor pen can befittingly appraise it. Though
the goal towards which you are now so strenuously striving
be distant, and as yet undisclosed to men's eyes, yet its
promise lies firmly embedded in the authoritative and unalterable
utterances of Bahá'u'lláh. Though the course He
has traced for you seems, at times, lost in the threatening
shadows with which a stricken humanity is now enveloped,
yet the unfailing light He has caused to shine continually
upon you is of such brightness that no earthly dusk can ever
eclipse its splendor. Though small in numbers, and circumscribed
as yet in your experiences, powers, and resources,
yet the Force which energizes your mission is limitless in its
range and incalculable in its potency. Though the enemies
which every acceleration in the progress of your mission
must raise up be fierce, numerous, and unrelenting, yet the
invisible Hosts which, if you persevere, must, as promised,
rush forth to your aid, will, in the end, enable you to vanquish
their hopes and annihilate their forces. Though the ultimate
blessings that must crown the consummation of your
mission be undoubted, and the Divine promises given you
firm and irrevocable, yet the measure of the goodly reward
which every one of you is to reap must depend on the extent
to which your daily exertions will have contributed to the
expansion of that mission and the hastening of its triumph.
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