A PLANETARY SPIRITUAL CRUSADE |
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1 | Let there be no mistake. The avowed, the primary aim of this Spiritual Crusade is none other than the conquest of the citadels of men's hearts. The theater of its operations is the entire planet. Its duration a whole decade. Its commencement synchronizes with the centenary of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission. Its culmination will coincide with the centenary of the declaration of that same Mission. The agencies assisting in its conduct are the nascent administrative institutions of a steadily evolving divinely appointed order. Its driving force is the energizing influence generated by the Revelation heralded by the Báb and proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh. Its Marshal is none other than the Author of the Divine Plan. Its standard-bearers are the Hands of the Cause of God appointed in every continent of the globe. Its generals are the twelve national spiritual assemblies participating in the execution of its design. Its vanguard is the chief executors of `Abdu'l-Bahá's master plan, their allies and associates. Its legions are the rank and file of believers standing behind these same twelve national assemblies and sharing in the global task embracing the American, the European, the African, the Asiatic and Australian fronts. The charter directing its course is the immortal Tablets that have flowed from the pen of the Center of the Covenant Himself. The armor with which its onrushing hosts have been invested is the glad tidings of God's own message in this day, the principles underlying the order proclaimed by His Messenger, and the laws and ordinances governing His Dispensation. The battle cry animating its heroes and heroines is the cry of Yá-Bahá'u'l-Abhá, Yá Alíyyu'l-`Alá. |
2 | So vast, so momentous and challenging a crusade that will, God willing, illuminate the annals of the second epoch of the Formative Age of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and immortalize the second decade of the second Bahá'í century, and the termination of which will mark the closing of the first epoch in the evolution of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine Plan, will, in itself, pave the way for, and constitute the prelude to, the initiation of the laborious and tremendously long process of establishing in the course of subsequent crusades in all the newly opened sovereign states, dependencies and islands of the planet, as well as in all the remaining territories of the globe, the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith, with all its attendant agencies, and of eventually erecting in these territories still more pillars to share in sustaining the weight and in broadening the foundation of the Universal House of Justice. |
3 |
Then, and only then, will the vast, the majestic process, set in
motion at the dawn of the Adamic cycle, attain its consummation--a
process which commenced six thousand years ago, with the planting,
in the soil of the divine will, of the tree of divine revelation, and
which has already passed through certain stages and must needs pass
through still others ere it attains its final consummation. The first part
of this process was the slow and steady growth of this tree of divine
revelation, successively putting forth its branches, shoots and offshoots,
and revealing its leaves, buds and blossoms, as a direct consequence
of the light and warmth imparted to it by a series of progressive
dispensations associated with Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha,
Jesus, |
4 | This present Crusade, on the threshold of which we now stand, will, moreover, by virtue of the dynamic forces it will release and its wide repercussions over the entire surface of the globe, contribute effectually to the acceleration of yet another process of tremendous significance which will carry the steadily evolving Faith of Bahá'u'lláh through its present stages of obscurity, of repression, of emancipation and of recognition--stages one or another of which Bahá'í national communities in various parts of the world now find themselves in--to the stage of establishment, the stage at which the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh will be recognized by the civil authorities as the state religion, similar to that which Christianity entered in the years following the death of the Emperor Constantine, a stage which must later be followed by the emergence of the Bahá'í state itself, functioning, in all religious and civil matters, in strict accordance with the laws and ordinances of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy, the Mother-Book of the Bahá'í Revelation, a stage which, in the fullness of time, will culminate in the establishment of the World Bahá'í Commonwealth, functioning in the plenitude of its powers, and which will signalize the long-awaited advent of the Christ-promised Kingdom of God on earth--the Kingdom of Bahá'u'lláh--mirroring however faintly upon this humble handful of dust the glories of the Abhá Kingdom. |
5 |
This final and crowning stage in the evolution of the plan wrought
by God Himself for humanity will, in turn, prove to be the signal
for the birth of a world civilization, incomparable in its range, its
character and potency, in the history of mankind--a civilization
which posterity will, with one voice, acclaim as the fairest fruit of
the Golden Age of the Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, and whose rich
harvest will be garnered during future dispensations destined to succeed
one another in the course of the five thousand century Bahá'í
Cycle.
[May 4, 1953] |