A STILL MORE COMPELLING DISPLAY
The vigorous action promptly taken by your assembly to insure the success of the forthcoming Centenary Celebrations is highly commendable, and provides a fresh demonstration of the magnificent response made by the American believers to every call demanding renewed exertion on their part in the service of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh. The progress recently achieved in building up Spiritual Assemblies in the virgin areas of the North American continent has been truly remarkable. To consummate so vast an enterprise, however, a still more compelling display of the vitality of the spirit animating the American Bahá’í community is required, a still greater concentration of effort is needed, an even more stirring evidence of the daring boldness of its members is imperative. Whoever will arise, in these concluding, fast-fleeting months of the last year of the first Bahá’í Century, to fill the remaining posts, and thereby set the seal of total victory on a Plan so pregnant with promise, will earn the lasting gratitude of the present generation of believers in both the East and the West, will merit the acclaim of posterity, will be vouchsafed the special benediction of the Concourse on High, and be made the recipient of the imperishable bounties of Him Who is the Divine Author of the Plan itself. Whoever will rush forth, at this eleventh hour, and cast his weight into the scales, and contribute his decisive share to so gigantic, so sacred and historic an undertaking, will have not only helped seal the triumph of the Plan itself but will also have notably participated in the fulfillment of what may be regarded as the crowning act of an entire century. The opportunity that presents itself at this crucial hour is precious beyond expression. The blessings destined to flow from a victory so near at hand are rich beyond example. One final surge of that indomitable spirit that has carried the American Bahá’í community to such heights is all that is required, as the first Bahá’í century speeds to a close, to release the flow of those blessings that must signalize the termination of the first, and usher in the dawn of the second, Bahá’í Century.
November 16, 1943
THE AUSPICIOUS YEAR
The auspicious year destined to witness the Centenary of the Birth of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh is brilliantly opening. The last year of the first Bahá’í Century is more than half spent. The tempo of organized, concerted activities of the members of the worldwide Bahá’í community is correspondingly accelerating. Teaching campaigns, enterprises of institutional significance, publicity measures, publication projects, and celebration plans are rapidly multiplying. Inter-community competition is steadily mounting. The world-desolating conflict, now in its fifth year, is powerless to cloud the splendid prospect of the triumphant termination of the first, most shining century of the Bahá’í Era. Ṭihrán reports thirty-four Assemblies constituted, fifty-four groups reinforced, fifty-eight new centers established. Messages from Delhi indicate that Bahá’ís have established residence in over sixty localities in India and eighteen Assemblies are already functioning. To the National Bahá’í Headquarters previously founded in Ṭihrán, Wilmette and Baghdád, are now added similar centers in Cairo, Delhi and Sydney, officially registered in the names of their respective National Assemblies, and representing an addition to Bahá’í national endowments amounting to approximately eighteen thousand pounds. The Bahá’í international endowments have been further enriched by a recent acquisition on Mount Carmel in the vicinity of the Báb’s Shrine transferred to the name of the Palestine Branch of the American National Assembly. Twenty-five acres of land situated in the Jordan Valley have just been dedicated to the Tomb of Bahá’u’lláh. The recent acquisition of land adjacent to the site of the projected Ṭihrán Temple raises the holding to over three and a half million square meters. The Seven Year Plan, providing the chief impulse to the extraordinary expansion of these magnificent activities, must, during the remaining five months, as befitting thanksgiving act for continued outpouring of God’s unfailing grace, surge ahead to dazzling victory surpassing our highest expectations. The prosecution of the Plan, whose scope transcends every other enterprise launched by Bahá’í communities throughout the whole century, must, ere the hundred years run out, culminate in one last, supreme effort whose repercussions will resound throughout the Bahá’í world.
January 4, 1944