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                     Citadel of Faith 
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                     Pages 60-62 
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 PRESS FORWARD ON TEMPLE CONTRACTS
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	| 1 | 
	
     The present and remaining contracts, designed to consummate the 
magnificent enterprise, initiated almost fifty years ago, in the heart of 
the North American continent and complete an edifice consecrated for 
all time by the loving hands of the Center of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, 
constituting the foremost symbol of the Faith, and incarnating the soul 
of the American Bahá'í Community in the Western Hemisphere, must 
be speedily and systematically carried out, however onerous the task 
may become, in consequence of the inevitable fluctuations to which the 
present economic conditions are subjected, in preparation for the 
jubilee that must mark the completion of that holy edifice. The recent 
broadening of the administrative basis of the Faith in a land that has 
served, and will long remain the base of the spiritual operations now 
being conducted in both hemispheres, in response to the ringing call of 
`Abdu'l-Bahá, sounded three decades ago in His historic Tablets, must, 
no matter how arduous and insistent the tasks to be performed in Latin 
America and Europe, be fully maintained, and the process continually 
 
enlarged and steadily consolidated.  The various agencies designed to 
carry the Message to the masses, and to present to them befittingly the 
teachings of its Author, must, likewise, be vigilantly preserved, supported 
and encouraged.  The essential preliminaries, calculated to widen 
the basis of the forthcoming Latin American national Bahá'í assemblies, 
to familiarize the Latin American believers with the administrative 
duties and functions they will be called upon to discharge and to 
enrich and deepen their knowledge of the essentials of their Faith, its 
ideals, its history, its requirements and its problems, must be carried out 
with ever-increasing energy as the hour of the emergence of these Latin 
American communities into independent existence steadily and inexorably 
approaches.  The necessary guidance, which can alone be properly 
insured through the maintenance of an uninterrupted extension of 
administrative assistance, through the settlement of pioneers and the 
visits of itinerant teachers to the daughter communities, must under no 
circumstances be completely withdrawn, after their independence has 
been achieved.  Above all, the momentous enterprise initiated in the 
transatlantic field of service, so vast in conception, so timely, so arduous, 
so far-reaching in its potentialities, so infinitely meritorious, must in the 
face of obstacles, however insurmountable they may seem, be continually 
reinvigorated through undiminished financial support, through 
an ever-expanding supply of literature in each of the required languages, 
through frequent, and whenever possible prolonged, visits of 
itinerant teachers, through the continued settlement of pioneers, 
through the consolidation of the assemblies already established, 
through the early constitution of properly functioning assemblies in the 
few remaining goal countries as yet deprived of this inestimable 
blessing, and last but not least through the exertion of sustained and 
concentrated efforts designed to supplement these foci of Bahá'í national 
administrative activity with subsidiary centers whose formation 
will herald the inauguration of teaching enterprises throughout the 
provinces of each of these ten countries.  
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	| 2 | 
	
     As the dynamic forces, sweeping forward the First Seven Year Plan, 
on the last stages of its execution, rose rapidly to a crescendo, culminating 
in the nationwide celebrations marking the centenary of the Faith 
of Bahá'u'lláh and synchronized with a further and still more precipitous 
decline in the fortunes of a war-torn bleeding society, so must 
 
every aggravation in the state of a world still harassed by the ravages of 
a devastating conflict, and now hovering on the brink of a yet more 
crucial struggle, be accompanied by a still more ennobling manifestation 
of the spirit of this second crusade, whose consummation might 
well coincide with a period of distress far more acute than the one 
through which humanity is now passing.  
 
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