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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 74-78
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This Hour, Crowded With Destiny
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The efforts exerted, and the results achieved, by the members of the
American Bahá'í Community during the opening months of the two-year
emergency period are such as to merit the highest commendation
and praise. They will, if the effort be sustained, evoke the admiration of
the entire Bahá'í world, which is now watching, with feelings of
wonder and expectancy, the outcome of the tremendous labor of this
community now confronted with one of the most challenging, arduous
and far-reaching tasks ever undertaken in its history.
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The great forward stride that has already been undertaken, during
so short a period, augurs well for the ultimate victory, now within
sight--a victory which will pave the way for the successful execution of
a seven-year enterprise, destined, in its turn, to enable its executors to
launch, at the appointed time, the third and most glorious stage in the
initial unfoldment of `Abdu'l-Bahá's unique and grand design for that
privileged and conspicuously blessed community.
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No less striking has been the achievement of the representatives of
this community in the vast and most recent field of their historic and
highly meritorious endeavors, exerted beyond the confines of their
homeland, where over so vast a territory, on a continent so agitated, and
amidst peoples so disillusioned, so varied in race, language and outlook,
so impoverished spiritually, so paralyzed with fear, so confused in
thought, so abased in their moral standards, so rent by internal schisms,
victories so rich in promise, so startling in their rapidity, so magnificent
in their range, have been won, and ennobled, to such a marked degree,
the deathless record of American Bahá'í service to the Faith of
Bahá'u'lláh.
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Now that so prodigious and successful an effort has been exerted on
behalf of the historic and sacred Temple, whose completion constitutes
so vital an objective of the Second Seven Year Plan, and so conspicuous
a triumph won in the transatlantic sphere of its operation, its needs and
other vital objectives, both at home and in the Latin American field,
must receive, in the months immediately ahead, the particular attention
of both the national elected representatives of the community who
supervise the working of the Plan and the mass of believers who
participate in its execution.
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While the financial requirements of the Mother Temple of the
West are being met with unabated heroism by rich and poor alike in
the critical months that lie ahead, and the measures to ensure the
undiminished support, and the uninterrupted consolidation of the
European enterprise are being assiduously carried out, a parallel effort,
no less strenuous and sustained should be simultaneously exerted in the
North American continent and in Central and South America, for the
purpose of preserving the prizes already won over the length and
breadth of the Western Hemisphere, where the initial impulse of this
mighty and Divine Plan has been felt and its initial victories in foreign
fields registered.
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The assemblies of the North American continent, constituting the
base for the gigantic operations destined to warm and illuminate,
under American Bahá'í auspices, the five continents of the globe, must,
at no time and under no circumstances, be allowed to diminish in
number or decline in strength and in influence. The movement of
pioneers, whether settlers or itinerant teachers, which in fields so
distant from this base, has exhibited so marvelous a vitality, must,
within the limits of the homeland itself, be neither interrupted nor
suffer a decline. The groups and isolated centers so painstakingly
formed and established must, conjointly with this highly commendable
and essential duty, be maintained, fostered and if possible multiplied.
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No less attention, while this emergency period taxes, to an unprecedented
degree, the combined resources of the envied trustees of
`Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine Plan, should be directed to the vast network of
Bahá'í enterprises initiated throughout Latin America, where the work
so nobly conceived, so diligently prosecuted, so conspicuously blessed,
is rapidly nearing the first stage of its fruition. The flow of pioneers, so
vital in all its aspects, and which has yielded such inestimable benefits
at the early stages of this widely ramified enterprise, must, however
urgent the other tasks already shouldered by an overburdened yet
unfailingly protected community, be neither arrested nor slacken. The
outpost of the newly born communities, established in the Straits of
Magallanes in the South, must be held with undiminished vigor and
determination. The major task of ensuring the breadth and solidity of
the foundations laid for the establishment of two national Bahá'í
assemblies, through the preservation of the present assemblies, groups
and isolated centers, and the restoration of any of these vital centers,
now dissolved, to their former status, must be scrupulously watched
and constantly encouraged. The process of the dissemination of Bahá'í
literature, of Bahá'í publication and translation, must continue unabated,
however much the sacrifice involved. The newly fledged institutions
of teaching and regional committees, of summer schools and of
congresses, must be continually encouraged and increasingly supported
by teachers as well as administrators, by pioneers from abroad, as well as
by the native believers themselves. The highly salutary and spiritually
beneficent experiment of encouraging a more active participation by
these newly won supporters of the Faith in Latin America, and a
greater assumption of administrative responsibility on their part, in the
ever expanding activities to be entrusted wholly to their care in the
years to come, should be, in particular, developed, systematized and
placed on a sure and unassailable foundation. Above all, the paramount
duty of deepening the spiritual life of these newly fledged, these
precious and highly esteemed co-workers, and of enlightening their
minds regarding the essential verities enshrined in their Faith, its
fundamental institutions, its history and genesis--the twin Covenants
of Bahá'u'lláh and of `Abdu'l-Bahá, the present Administrative Order,
the future World Order, the Laws of the Most Holy Book, the
inseparable institutions of the Guardianship and of the Universal
House of Justice, the salient events of the Heroic and Formative Ages
of the Faith, and its relationship with the Dispensations that have
preceded it, its attitude toward the social and political organizations by
which it is surrounded--must continue to constitute the most vital
aspect of the great spiritual Crusade launched by the champions of the
Faith from among the peoples of their sister republics in the South.
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The magnitude of the tasks these heroes and champions of the
Faith are summoned, at this hour, crowded with destiny, to discharge
from the borders of Greenland to the southern extremity of Chile in the
Western Hemisphere, and from Scandinavia in the north, to the
Iberian peninsula in the south of the European continent, is, indeed,
breath-taking in its implications and back-breaking in the strain it
imposes. The sacrifices they are called upon to voluntarily make for
the successful performance of such herculean, such holy, such epoch-making
tasks, are comparable to none but those which their spiritual
forbears have willingly accepted at the hour of the birth of their
Faith more than a hundred years ago. Theirs is the privilege, no less
meritorious and perhaps as epoch-making, to preside, in their own
homeland and its neighboring continents, over, and direct the forces
generated by, the birth of an order that posterity will acclaim as both
the offspring of that Faith, and the precursor of the Golden Age in
which that same Faith must, in the fullness of time, find its fullest
expression and most glorious consummation.
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How great the opportunity which the present hour, so dark in the
fortunes of mankind and yet so bright in the ever-unfolding history of
their Faith, offers them. How unspeakably precious the reward which
they who serve it will reap! How pitiful and urgent the need of the
waiting multitudes of these continents, summoned to sustain the initial
impact of the operation of a divinely impelled Plan which no force can
resist and no power can rival!
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For what this superbly equipped community, this irresistibly
advancing army of the chosen warriors of Bahá'u'lláh, battling under
His banner, operating in conformity with the explicit Mandate voiced
by His beloved Son, has already achieved, over so extensive a field, in
such a brief time, at such great sacrifice, for so precious a Cause, and in
the course of such turbulent years, I cannot but feel the deepest sense of
gratitude the like of which no achievement, single or collective,
rendered in any other part of the globe, by any community associated
with the Cause of the Most Great Name has evoked. For what it will
and must achieve in the future I entertain feelings of warm expectation
and serene confidence. For it, I will continue, from the depths of a
loving and grateful heart to supplicate blessings immeasurably richer
than any it has yet experienced.
[August 18, 1949]
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