IN THE PACIFIC AREA
In the Pacific area, where Bahá’í exploits bid fair to outshine the feats achieved in any other ocean, and indeed in every continent of the globe, now competing for the palm of victory with the African continent itself, preliminary measures have been undertaken for the formation of no less than three of the thirteen national and regional spiritual assemblies which are to be established in the course of this year’s Ridván festivities. These three assemblies, the seats of which are to be located in Japan, in Indonesia and in the Dominion of New Zealand, are destined to function in regions where the yellow, the brown and white races predominate, and in which the majority of the inhabitants belong either to the Buddhist, the Muslim or Christian Faiths. In so vast and promising an area, blessed by the labors of two Hands of the Cause of God, the number of localities where Bahá’ís reside, which in the concluding years of the Apostolic Age of the Faith, had barely reached ten, has now swelled to over two hundred and ten, scattered over no less than forty islands. It already boasts over seventeen hundred believers of the brown race alone, more than fifty local spiritual assemblies, five national Hazíratu’l-Quds, three Bahá’í schools, twenty-one incorporated local spiritual assemblies, four states where Bahá’í national endowments have been established, a site purchased for its first projected Mashriqu’l-Adhkár, three territories where the Bahá’í Marriage Certificate is recognized, and three others where Bahá’í children have been allowed to observe the Bahá’í Holy Days, as well as the translation of Bahá’í literature into no less than fifty of the languages current among its indigenous population. It, moreover, prides itself on the initiation of teaching activities in no less than a hundred of the four hundred islands constituting one of its numerous southern archipelagos.