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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 33-35
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A PARALLEL BETWEEN THE AMERICAN BAHÁ'Í COMMUNITY AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
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Might not a still closer parallel be drawn between the community
singled out for the execution of this world-embracing Plan, in its
relation to its sister communities, and the nation of which it forms a
part, in its relation to its sister nations? On the one hand is a community
which ever since its birth has been nursed in the lap of `Abdu'l-Bahá
and been lovingly trained by Him through the revelation of unnumbered
Tablets, through the dispatch of special and successive messengers,
and through His own prolonged visit to the North American
continent in the evening of His life. It was to the members of this
community, the spiritual descendants of the dawn-breakers of the
Heroic Age of our Faith, that He, whilst sojourning in the City of
the Covenant, chose to reveal the implications of that Covenant. It
was in the vicinity of this community's earliest established center that
He laid, with His own hands, the cornerstone of the first Mashriqu'l-Adhkár
of the western world. It was to the members of this community
that He subsequently addressed His Tablets of the Divine Plan,
investing it with a spiritual primacy, and singling it out for a glorious
mission among its sister communities. It was this community which
won the immortal honor of being the first to introduce the Faith in the
British Isles, in France and in Germany, and which sent forth its
consecrated pioneers and teachers to China, Japan and India, to
Australia and New Zealand, to the Balkan Peninsula, to South Africa,
to Latin America, to the Baltic States, to Scandinavia and the islands of
the Pacific, hoisting thereby its banner in the vast majority of the
countries won over to its cause, in both the East and the West, prior to
`Abdu'l-Bahá's passing.
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It was this community, the cradle and stronghold of the Administrative
Order of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, which, on the morrow of
`Abdu'l-Bahá's ascension, was the first among all other Bahá'í communities
in East and West to arise and champion the cause of that Order,
to fix its pattern, to erect its fabric, to initiate its endowments, to
establish and consolidate its subsidiary institutions, and to vindicate its
aims and purposes. To it belongs the unique distinction of having
erected, in the heart of the North American continent, the first
Mashriqu'l-Adhkár of the West, the holiest edifice ever to be reared by
the hands of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh in either the Eastern or
Western Hemisphere. It was through the assiduous and unflagging
labors of the most distinguished and consecrated among its itinerant
teachers that the allegiance of royalty to the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh was
won, and unequivocally proclaimed in successive testimonies as penned
by the royal convert herself. To its members, the vanguard of the
torchbearers of the future world civilization, must, moreover, be ascribed
the imperishable glory of having launched and successfully
concluded the first stage of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine Plan, in the concluding
years of the first Bahá'í century, establishing thereby the structural
basis of the Administrative Order of the Faith in all the republics of
Central and South America. It is this same community which is once
again carrying off the palm of victory through launching, in the first
decade of the second century of the Bahá'í Era, the second stage
of that same Plan, destined to lay the foundations of the Bahá'í
Administrative Order in no less than ten sovereign states in the
continent of Europe, comprising the Scandinavian states, the Low
Countries, the states of the Iberian Peninsula, Switzerland and Italy.
And lastly, to its enterprising members must go the unique honor and
privilege of having arisen, on unnumbered occasions, and over a period
of more than a quarter of a century, to champion the cause of the down-trodden
and persecuted among their brethren in Persia, in Egypt, in
Russia, in `Iráq and in Germany, to stretch a generous helping hand to
the needy among them, to defend and safeguard the interests of their
institutions, and to plead their cause before political and ecclesiastical
adversaries.
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On the other hand is a nation that has achieved undisputed
ascendancy in the entire Western Hemisphere, whose rulers have been
uniquely honored by being collectively addressed by the Author of the
Bahá'í Revelation in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas; which has been acclaimed by
`Abdu'l-Bahá as the "home of the righteous and the gathering-place of
the free," where the "splendors of His light shall be revealed, where the
mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled" and belonging to a continent
which, as recorded by that same pen, "giveth signs and evidences of
very great advancement," whose "future is even more promising,"
whose "influence and illumination are far-reaching," and which "will
lead all nations spiritually." Moreover, it is to this great republic of the
West that the Center of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh has referred as the
nation that has "developed powers and capacities greater and more
wonderful than other nations," and which "is equipped and empowered
to accomplish that which will adorn the pages of history, to
become the envy of the world, and be blest in both the East and the
West for the triumph of its people." It is for this same American
democracy that He expressed His fervent hope that it might be "the
first nation to establish the foundation of international agreement," "to
proclaim the unity of mankind," and "to unfurl the Standard of the
Most Great Peace," that it might become "the distributing center of
spiritual enlightenment, and all the world receive this heavenly blessing,"
and that its inhabitants might "rise from their present material
attainments to such a height that heavenly illumination may stream
from this center to all the peoples of the world." It is in connection with
its people that He has affirmed that they are "indeed worthy of being
the first to build the Tabernacle of the Great Peace and proclaim the
oneness of mankind."
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