The task regarded as an essential preliminary to the crusade destined to
embrace the whole of Latin America is now in full swing and is being
rapidly carried out. A further step, designed to hasten the conclusion of
the final phase of the ornamentation of the Temple, has also been taken. As
the days roll by, as the perturbations of an imperiled civilization are more
alarmingly manifested, the potentialities of God's creative Plan
correspondingly unfold, and the valor and heroism of its intrepid supporters
are more widely and convincingly demonstrated. With every successful effort to
muster its young and scattered forces, to perfect its methods, to extend the
range of its operations, to deepen its spiritual life and to scale loftier
heights of individual heroism, there will, I cannot but feel confident, be
granted to this community a greater opportunity to prove its worth, and a
fuller measure of celestial strength to enable it to reenact, on the soil of
the United States and Canada and throughout the entire Western Hemisphere,
those stirring exploits that have shed such lustre on the apostolic age of the
Faith of Bahá'u'lláh. Though much has thus far been achieved, yet the
processes now set in motion through the evolution of the Plan are still far too
rudimentary to permit even a faint glimpse of the brilliancy of the epoch
in which `Abdu'l-Bahá's own Plan must come to fruition. Not ours to
attempt, at the present moment, a survey of the distant scene, or to seek
to visualize its glories, or to dwell on the consequences of the eventual
attainment of an as yet far-off goal. Ours is the solemn, the inescapable
duty to labor faithfully and unremittingly to insure that no opportunity
is being missed, that no avenues are left unexplored, that might, however
indirectly, contribute to the furtherance of those tasks that claim so
insistently our immediate attention. That those into whose hands this
dynamic Plan has been entrusted are aware of the essential character of their
obligations and will discharge worthily their duties, no one, viewing the
range and quality of their achievements, can entertain the slightest doubt.
February 8, 1939