Emergency Teaching Campaign
Greatly encouraged by the splendid progress of the tremendous drive initiated in response to my appeal. The zero hour is inexorably approaching. Nineteen additional settlers can and must be provided. Praying with increasing fervor for total success, complete victory.
[April 6, 1948]
Marvelous Acceleration
[FIRST MESSAGE TO 1948 CONVENTION]
I am moved to share with assembled delegates of the fortieth American Bahá’í Convention the following facts and figures testifying to the present status of the World Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and disclosing the marvelous acceleration in the double process of the extension of its range and the consolidation of the institutions of its Administrative Order in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres in the course of the first four years of the second Bahá’í century.
The number of countries opened to the Faith total ninety-one. Bahá’í literature is translated and printed in fifty-one languages. Representatives of thirty-one races are enrolled in the Bahá’í World Community. Eighty-eight assemblies, national and local, are incorporated. The number of localities where Bahá’ís have established residence has been raised to over thirty in Australasia, to over forty in Germany and Austria, over sixty in the Dominion of Canada, over eighty in the Indian subcontinent and Burma, over one hundred in Latin America, over seven hundred in Persia and to over twelve hundred in the United States of America.
The value of international Bahá’í endowments in the Holy Land and the Jordan Valley is estimated at over six hundred thousand pounds. National Bahá’í endowments on the North American continent are valued at over two million dollars. The area of land dedicated to the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in Persia is approximately four million square meters. The value of the national Hazíratu’l-Quds in the capitals of India and Persia respectively is six hundred thousand rupees and fifty thousand pounds. The area of land dedicated to the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in South America is ninety thousand square meters. The number of pieces of Bahá’í literature sold and distributed in the course of one year in North America is over eighty thousand pieces. The record of the number of visitors to the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár in America in one year is over seventeen thousand and the total number of visitors since its erection is over one quarter of a million. The number of states in the American Union formally recognizing Bahá’í marriage certificates is now eight. The number of national assemblies functioning in the Bahá’í world is raised to nine through the formation of the first Canadian National Assembly, to be shortly reinforced through the constitution of two additional assemblies in South and Central America and the West Indies.
The second seven-year, the six-year, the four and one-half year, the six-year, the three-year, the five-year and forty-five month plans respectively launched by the American, British, Indian, Australasian, Iráqí, Canadian, and Persian National Spiritual Assemblies, some culminating at the first Centennial of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh’s mission, others the Hundredth Anniversary of the Báb’s Martyrdom, are aiming at the establishment of three national assemblies in Canada and Latin America, the completion of the interior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West, the formation of spiritual assemblies in ten sovereign states of the European continent, the constitution of nineteen assemblies in the British Isles, doubling the number of assemblies in India, Pakistan and Burma, the reconstitution of the dissolved assemblies and the establishment of ninety-five new centers in Persia, the conversion of groups in Bahrein, the Ḥijáz and Afghánistán into assemblies, the formation of administrative nuclei in the Arabian territories of Yemen, Oman, Hasa and Kuweit; the formation of thirty-one groups and seven assemblies in Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania; the multiplication of centers in the provinces of ‘Iráq, including the district of Shattu’l-Arab; the incorporation of the Canadian National Assembly; doubling the number of assemblies and raising to one hundred the centers in the Dominion of Canada; the constitution of nuclei in Newfoundland and Greenland and the participation of Eskimos and Red Indians in the local institutions of the Administrative Order.
Plans and specifications have been prepared, and preliminary measures taken, to place contracts for the arcade of the Báb’s Sepulcher. Historic International Bahá’í Congresses held in South and Central America and an inter-European Teaching Conference projected for Geneva paving the way for future World Bahá’í Congress. Recognition extended to the Faith by United Nations as international non-governmental body, enabling appointment of accredited representatives to United Nations conferences, is heralding world recognition for a universal proclamation of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.
[April 16, 1948]
Brilliant Achievements
[SECOND MESSAGE TO 1948 CONVENTION]
Joyfully acclaim brilliant achievements transcending fondest hopes and setting the seal of complete victory on the stupendous labors undertaken by American Bahá’í Community in the second year of the Second Seven Year Plan. The constitution of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada, the heroic feat of raising to almost two hundred the number of spiritual assemblies in the North American continent, the marvelous expansion of the daughter communities in Latin America, the successful conclusion of the preliminary phase of the interior ornamentation of the Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, and the crowning exploit of the formation of no less than seven assemblies in the newly opened transcontinental field, endow with everlasting fame the second epoch of the Formative Age, immeasurably enrich the annals of the opening decade of the second Bahá’í century, and constitute a landmark in the unfoldment of the second stage of the execution of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Plan.
The primacy of the American Bahá’í Community is reasserted, fully vindicated and completely safeguarded. Recent successive victories proclaim the undiminished strength and exemplary valor of the rank and file of the community whether administrators, teachers or pioneers in three continents regarded as the latest links in the chain of uninterrupted achievements performed by its members in the council, and teaching field for over a quarter of a century. I recall on this joyous occasion with pride, emotion, thankfulness, the resplendent record of stewardship of this dearly loved, richly endowed, unflinchingly resolute community, whose administrators have assumed the preponderating share in perfecting the machinery of the Administrative Order, whose elected representatives have raised the edifice and completed the exterior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West, whose trail-blazers opened an overwhelming majority of the ninety-one countries now included within the pale of the Faith, whose pioneers established flourishing communities in twenty republics of Latin America, whose benefactors extended in ample measure assistance in various ways to their sorely pressed brethren in distant fields, whose members scattered themselves to thirteen hundred centers in every state of the American Union, every province of the Dominion of Canada, whose firmest champion succeeded in winning royalty’s allegiance to the Message of Bahá’u’lláh, whose heroes and martyrs laid down their lives in its service in fields as remote as Honolulu, Buenos Aires, Sidney, Iṣfáhán, whose vanguard pushed its outposts to the antipodes on the farthest verge of the South American continent, to the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, to the northern, southern, and western fringes of the European continent, whose ambassadors are now convening, on the soil of one of the newly won territories, its historic first conference designed to consolidate the newly won prizes, whose spokesmen are securing recognition of the institutions of Bahá’u’lláh’s rising World Order in the United Nations.
Appeal to members of the community so privileged, so loved, so valorous, endowed with such potentialities to unitedly press forward however afflictive the trials their countrymen may yet experience, however grievous the tribulations the land of their heart’s desire may yet suffer, however oppressive an anxiety the temporary severance of external communications with the World Center of their Faith may engender, however onerous the tasks still to be accomplished, until every single obligation under the present Plan is honorably fulfilled, enabling them to launch in its appointed time the third crusade destined to bring glorious consummation to the first epoch in the evolution of their divinely appointed world mission, fulfill the prophecy uttered by Daniel over twenty centuries ago, contribute the major share of the world triumph of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh envisaged by the Center of His Covenant, and hasten the opening of the Golden Age of the Bahá’í Dispensation.
[April 26, 1948]