This glorious work, so cheering to all our hearts, is, however, greatly increasing the burden our beloved Guardian bears, and he hopes the friends will understand this when they find letters to him can no longer be answered promptly. At such a time, when this country has passed through so much danger and difficulty, it is little short of miraculous the way this work on the Shrine has been facilitated and protected and gone ahead steadily! It is greatly enhancing the prestige of the Faith here, and the authorities have been cooperative and helpful.
Grave Challenge
[From the Guardian:]
The communications addressed to me several months ago by your Assembly have, after considerable delay in transmission, reached the Holy Land, and, together with the reports and minutes accompanying them, were read with deep and sustained interest.
The tremendous task facing the Baha’i Communities in India, Pakistan and Burma, constitutes a grave challenge to the followers of the Faith of Baha’u’llah in these countries and must be faced and met with courage, determination and a spirit of complete dedication to His Cause. The disturbances that have so gravely shaken the peoples of these countries, on the morrow of a world-convulsing international conflict; the unfortunate and sudden cessation of communications between these countries and the World Centre of the Faith in the Holy Land during the past year; the fears and anxieties engendered by a steadily deteriorating international situation which cannot but dismay the stoutest hearts, have no doubt contributed, in varying degrees, and in no small measure, to a slowing down of the progress of the collective enterprise, so nobly, so enthusiastically and so energetically initiated by the upholders of the Faith throughout the sub-continent of India and Burma.
The reverses they have suffered, with their attendant disappointments, confusion and relaxation of effort, must never be allowed, however short the period remaining before the termination of their Plan, to jeopardize the chance of a success which is still in their power to achieve. They must close their ranks, gird up their loins, rededicate their souls and spirits to the unfinished tasks which face them, purge themselves of every taint of communal prejudice, detach themselves from every thought of self-interest, and arise, while there is yet time, to attain the goals they have pledged themselves to attain.
The final phase of the Plan with which they stand identified, and on which their immediate destiny depends, coincides with the hundredth anniversary of the most bloody, tragic and turbulent period in the history of their Faith—a period immortalised by the noblest evidences of Baha’i self-sacrifice, marked by acts of sublime heroism, and ennobled by a spirit of dedication and determination unsurpassed at any subsequent stage in Baha’i history. Now, if ever, is the time to emulate the example of these heroes, saints and martyrs. Now is the time to pour out one’s substance as copiously and as readily, as the Dawn-breakers of the Heroic Age of the Faith have shed their life-blood in the path of this most precious Cause. No more befitting tribute can be paid to the memory of these luminous souls, by those who carry the torch of Divine Guidance after them, than by a corresponding
manifestation of solidarity, self-abnegation, zeal and devotion, which will impel them to forsake their homes, sacrifice their treasure, brave every danger, endure every hardship, expend every ounce of energy, that the Plan which they have spontaneously and unitedly sponsored may, through its triumphant termination, carry them a stage further along the broad highway of their destiny.