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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 90-93
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Spiritual Conquest of the Planet
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The virtual termination of the interior ornamentation of the first
Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the West; the forthcoming formation of the twin
national spiritual assemblies of Latin America, following upon the
establishment of a corresponding institution in the Dominion of Canada;
the full attainment of the prescribed goals on the European
continent in accordance with the provisions of the Second Seven Year
Plan and the consolidation already achieved in the North American
continent, do not, under any circumstances, imply that the vast
responsibilities shouldered by a valiant, an alert and resolute community,
have been fully and totally discharged, or that its members can
afford, as the plan draws to its conclusion, to sink into complacency or
relax for one moment in their high endeavors.
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The hour destined to mark the triumphant conclusion of the second
stage in their historic, divinely conferred, world-encircling mission has
not yet struck. Rumblings, loud and persistent, presaging a crisis of
extreme severity in world affairs, confront them with a challenge
which, in spite of what they have already accomplished, they cannot
and must not either ignore or underrate. The rise of the World
Administrative Center of their Faith, within the precincts and under
the shadow of its World Spiritual Center, a process that has been kept
in abeyance for well nigh thirty years, whilst the machinery of the
national and local institutions of a nascent Order was being erected and
perfected, presents them with an opportunity which, as the champion-builders
of that Order and the torchbearers of an as yet unborn
civilization, they must seize with alacrity, resolution and utter consecration.
The initiation of momentous projects in other continents of the
globe, and particularly in Africa, as a result of the growing initiative
and the spirit of enterprise exhibited by their fellow-workers in East
and West, cannot leave unmoved the vanguard of a host summoned by
`Abdu'l-Bahá, its Divine Commander, and in accordance with the
provisions of a God-given Charter, to play such a preponderating role in
the spiritual conquest of the entire planet. Above all, the rapid
prosecution of an enterprise transcending any undertaking, whether
national or local, embarked upon by the followers of the Faith of
Bahá'u'lláh, destined to attain its consummation with the erection of
the dome of the Báb's holy Sepulcher, imposes an added obligation,
owing to unforeseen circumstances, on the already multitudinous
duties assumed by a community wholly absorbed in the various tasks it
shoulders. In fact, as the Centenary of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's
prophetic Mission approaches, His American followers, not content
with the successful conclusion, in their entirety, of the tasks assigned to
them, must aspire to celebrate befittingly this historic occasion, as
becomes the chosen recipients, and the privileged trustees, of a divinely
conceived Plan, through emblazoning with still more conspicuous
exploits, their record of stewardship to a Faith whose Author has issued
such a ringing call to the rulers of the American continent, and the
Center of Whose Covenant has entrusted the American Bahá'í Community
with so glorious a mission. Indeed the present stage in the
construction of the superstructure of so holy a shrine imperatively
demands a concentration of attention and resources commensurate
with the high position occupied by this community, with the freedom it
enjoys and the material means at its disposal. The signing of two
successive contracts, for the masonry of the octagon, the cylinder and
the dome of the edifice, necessitated by a sudden worsening of the
international situation, which might cut off indefinitely the provision
of the same stones used for the erection of the arcade and the parapet of
that Sepulcher, and amounting to no less than one hundred and ninety
thousand dollars; the subsidiary contracts for the provision of steel and
cement for the erection of the wrought iron balustrade and the metal
window frames of both the octagon and the cylinder, involving an
additional expenditure of no less than twenty thousand dollars, to
which must be added the cost of the excavation for and the sinking of
the eight piers designed to support the weight of the dome and the
immediate construction of the octagon--these call for a stupendous
effort on the part of all Bahá'í communities and a self-abnegation
unprecedented in Bahá'í history. A drastic reduction of national and
local budgets; the allocation of substantial sums by all national assemblies;
the participation of individuals through sustained and direct
donations to the first international and incomparably holy enterprise
synchronizing with the birth of the International Bahá'í Council at the
very heart and center of a world-encircling Faith can alone insure the
uninterrupted progress of an undertaking which, coupled with the
completion of the Mother Temple of the West, cannot fail to produce
tremendous repercussions in the Holy Land, in the North American
continent and throughout the world. A period of austerity covering the
two-year interval separating us from the Centenary celebrations of the
Year Nine, prolonging so unexpectedly the austerity period already
traversed by the American Bahá'í Community, and now extended to
embrace its sister communities throughout the Bahá'í world, is evidently
not only essential for the attainment of so transcendent a goal,
but also supremely befitting when we recall the nature and dimensions
of the holocaust which a hundred years ago crimson-dyed the annals of
our Faith, which posterity will recognize as the bloodiest episode of the
most tragic period of the Heroic Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation,
which involved the martyrdom of that incomparable heroine Táhirih,
which was immediately preceded by the imprisonment of Bahá'u'lláh
in the subterranean dungeon of Tihrán, and which sealed the fate of
thousands of men, women and children in circumstances of unspeakable
savagery and on a scale unapproached throughout subsequent
stages of Bahá'í history.
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