|
<<previous |
next>> |
|
|
Citadel of Faith
|
Pages 6-8
|
|
FOURFOLD OBJECTIVE TO PRESENT REQUIREMENTS
| |
1 |
Not ours, however, to unriddle the workings of a distant future, or
to dwell upon the promised glories of a God-impelled and unimaginably
potent Revelation. Ours, rather, the task to cast our eyes upon, and
bend our energies to meet, the challenging requirements of the present
hour. Labors, of an urgent and sacred character, claim insistently our
undivided attention during the opening years of this new epoch which
we have entered. The Second Seven Year Plan, intended to carry a
stage further the mission conceived by `Abdu'l-Bahá for the American
Bahá'í Community, is now entering its second year, and must, as it
operates in three continents, be productive of results outshining any as
yet achieved since the Divine Plan itself was set in motion during the
concluding years of the first Bahá'í century. Unlike the plans which
Bahá'í communities in Europe and on the Asiatic continent have
spontaneously inaugurated since the commencement of the present
century, the Plan with which the community of the "Apostles of
Bahá'u'lláh" stands identified is divine in origin, is guided by the
explicit and repeated instructions that have flowed from the pen of the
Center of the Covenant Himself, is energized by the all-compelling will
of its Author, claims as the theater for its operation territories spread
over five continents and the islands of the seven seas, and must continue
to function, ere its purpose is achieved, throughout successive
epochs in the course of the Formative Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation.
As it propels itself forward, driven by forces which its prosecutors can
not hope to properly assess, as it spreads its ramifications to the furthest
corners of the Western Hemisphere, and across the oceans to the
continents of the Old World, and beyond them to the far-flung islands
of the seas, this Plan, the birthright of the North American Bahá'í
Community, will be increasingly regarded as an agency designed not
only for the enlargement of the limits of the Faith and the multiplication
of its institutions over the face of the planet, but for the acceleration
of the construction and completion of the administrative framework
of Bahá'u'lláh's embryonic World Order, hastening thereby the
advent of that Golden Age which must witness the proclamation of the
Most Great Peace and the unfoldment of that world civilization which
is the offspring and primary purpose of that Peace.
| |
2 |
The fourfold objective, which the prosecutors of the Plan, in the
present early stage of its development, are now pursuing, and which is
designed to stimulate the dual process initiated during the opening
phase of the Formative Age of the Faith, must be strenuously and
unfalteringly pursued. The second year of the Second Seven Year Plan
must witness, on all fronts, on the part of young and old alike, rich and
poor, colored and white, neophyte and veteran, a rededication to the
tasks undertaken and an intensification of effort for their furtherance
wholly unparalleled in the annals of American Bahá'í history. In every
state of the United States, in every province of the Dominion of
Canada, in every republic of Central and South America, in each of the
ten selected sovereign states of the European continent, the ever-swelling
legions of Bahá'u'lláh's steadily advancing army, obeying
the Mandate of `Abdu'l-Bahá, launched on the second stage of their
world-wide crusade, deriving fresh courage from the exploits that have
distinguished the opening phase of the present stage of their enterprise,
must strain every nerve to scale loftier heights of heroism, and deploy,
over a wider range, their divinely sustained forces, as their present Plan
unfolds and moves towards a climax.
| |
|
|
|