THE MOTHER-TEMPLES OF THREE CONTINENTS
So brilliant and diversified a record of services to the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, has been greatly enriched by the plans now initiated for the launching of an ambitious three-fold enterprise, designed to compensate for the disabilities suffered by the sorely-tried Community of the followers of His Faith in the land of His birth, aiming at the erection, in localities as far apart as Frankfurt, Sydney and Kampala, of the Mother-Temples of the European, the Australian and African continents, at a cost of approximately one million dollars, complementing the Temples already constructed in the Asiatic and American continents. One-third of this sum I, gladly and with a grateful heart, pledge at this auspicious hour, a sum which, when added to the funds already donated for this laudable purpose, amounting to one hundred and forty thousand dollars—over one hundred thousand of which represents the munificent donation of the Hand of the Cause, Amelia Collins—will constitute well-nigh half of the entire amount required to ensure the consummation of this stupendous, epoch-making undertaking.
The designs for these sacred Fanes, to be raised to the glory of the Founder of our Faith, and dedicated to the worship of the one true God, have, in the case of the Australian and African Temples, been already executed by the Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, whilst the design for the German Temple has been completed by the German architect, Teuto Rocholl—all three of which will be exhibited, for the first time, to the assembled delegates at the thirteen historic Bahá’í National Conventions being held for the first time during this year’s Ridván Festival. The excavation of the foundations of the African Temple has actually commenced, whilst plans and specifications are being prepared by a well-known firm in Kampala. The construction of the Australian Temple has, moreover, been placed in the hands of a reliable Sydney architect, who will have completed the detailed drawings and specifications by the first of Ridván, and contemplates beginning work on the foundations by next June and completing the building by March, 1959.
To the National and Local Spiritual Assemblies, more than a thousand in number, to groups as well as individuals, in every continent of the globe, and in whatever island they may be laboring in the service of this glorious Faith, I direct an earnest plea to arise, now that the prodigious task of the purchase of more than forty national Hazíratu’l-Quds, and the establishment of Bahá’í national endowments in nearly fifty countries, has been triumphantly consummated and display, at this hour when the global Spiritual Crusade has just passed the third-way point, the self-same solidarity, generosity, tenacity and single-mindedness which they have consistently demonstrated since its inauguration four years ago, which have insured the success of some of the most arduous enterprises launched under the Ten-Year Plan, and which, in the decades preceding its inception, have brought to a glorious culmination the task of erecting the first two Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs of the Bahá’í world.