ELIZABETH GREENLEAF
Share deep grief of bereaved community at passing of Elizabeth Greenleaf, beloved handmaid of Bahá’u’lláh. Her radiant spirit, staunch loyalty, noble character, effective teaching method were distinguishing features of her consecrated life. Praying abundant blessings in life beyond.
Cablegram August 7, 1941
UNCONQUERABLE POWER
As I survey the activities and accomplishments of the American believers in recent months, and recall their reaction to the urgent call for service, embodied in the Seven Year Plan, I feel overwhelmed by a three-fold sense of gratitude and admiration which I feel prompted to place on record, but which I cannot adequately express. Future generations can alone appraise correctly the value of their present services, and the Beloved, whose mandate they are so valiantly obeying, can alone befittingly reward them for the manner in which they are discharging their duties.
The virtual completion of a thirty year old enterprise, which was initiated in His days and blessed by His Hand, is the first and foremost accomplishment that must shed imperishable luster not only on the administrative annals of the Formative Age of the Faith, but on the entire record of the signal achievements performed in the course of the First Century of the Bahá’í Era. The steady expansion and consolidation of the world mission, entrusted by that same Master, to their hands and set in operation after His passing, constitutes the second object of my undying gratitude to a community that has abundantly demonstrated its worthiness to shoulder the superhuman tasks with which it has been entrusted. The spirit with which that same community has faced and resisted the onslaught of the enemies of the Faith who, for various reasons and with ever-increasing subtlety and malice, have persistently striven to disrupt the administrative machinery of an Order, foreshadowed by the Báb, enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh, and established by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is yet another testimony to the unrivalled merits and the eminent position attained by its privileged members since the ascension of the Center of the Covenant.
The extinction of the influence precariously exerted by some of these enemies, the decline that has set in in the fortunes of others, the sincere repentance expressed by still others, and their subsequent reinstatement and effectual participation in the teaching and administrative activities of the Faith, constitute in themselves sufficient evidence of the unconquerable power and invincible spirit which animates those who stand identified with and loyally carry out the provisions and injunctions of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.