The opening years of the second century of the Bahá’í Era are witnessing the launching of yet another stage of an enterprise the range of whose unfolding processes we can, at the present time, but dimly visualize. However familiar we may be with its origin, however conscious of its magnitude and bold character, however cognizant of the signal success that has attended its initial operation, in the Western Hemisphere, we find ourselves nevertheless incapable of either grasping the import of its tremendous potentialities, or of correctly appraising the significance of the present phase of its development. Nor can we assess its reaction, as the momentum of the mysterious forces driving it onward augments, on the fortunes of the divers communities whose members are consciously laboring for the achievement of purposes akin to the high aims that animate its promoters, or estimate its impact, as its scope is further enlarged and its fruition is accelerated, on the immediate destinies of mankind in general.
The impulse from which this historic world-embracing crusade, which, alike in the character of its Founder and the nature of the tasks committed to its participants, is unprecedented in religious history, derives its creative power may be said to have in a sense originated with the mandate issued by the Báb in His “Qayyúmu’l-Asmá,” one of His earliest and greatest works, as far back as the opening years of the first Bahá’í century, and directed specifically to the “peoples of the West,” to “issue forth” from their “cities” and aid His Cause.
To this initial impulse given by the Herald of our Faith, whilst confined in the heart of far-away Asia, a still greater force was communicated, and a more specific direction given, when the Author of our Faith Himself, having already set foot on the fringes of the continent of Europe, addressed, in His Kitáb-i-Aqdas, from behind the walls of the prison-city of Akká, some of the most celebrated passages of that Book to the Chief Magistrates of the entire American continent, bidding them “bind with the hands of justice the broken,” and “crush the oppressor” with the “rod of the commandments” of their Lord. Unlike the kings of the earth whom He had so boldly condemned in that same Book, unlike the European Sovereigns whom He had either rebuked, warned or denounced, such as the French Emperor, the most powerful monarch of his time, the Conqueror of that monarch, the Heir of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Caliph of Islám, the Rulers of America were not only spared the ominous and emphatic warnings which He uttered against the crowned heads of the world, but were called upon to bring their corrective and healing influence to bear upon the injustices perpetrated by the tyrannical and the ungodly. To this remarkable pronouncement, conferring such distinction upon the sovereign rulers of the Western Hemisphere, must be added not only the passages in which the Author of our Faith clearly foreshadows the revelation of the “signs of His dominion” in the West, but also the no less significant verbal affirmations which, according to reliable eye-witnesses, He more than once made in regard to the glorious destiny which America was to attain in the days to come.
That same impulse was markedly accelerated when the Center of the Covenant Himself, through a series of successive acts, chose to disclose, to an unprecedented extent, the character of the Mission reserved for the followers of Bahá’u’lláh in that continent, and to delineate the tasks whereby that God-given design was to be fulfilled. No sooner had He mounted the helm of the Faith than He unmistakably revealed to His followers His purpose of making the establishment of that Faith in the West, and particularly in the New World, one of the chief objectives of His ministry. No sooner had that great feat been accomplished than He undertook to visit those centers which His disciples had labored to establish, and, through a number of symbolic acts and weighty pronouncements, to pave the way for the inauguration of the collective undertaking He was preparing those disciples to carry out. In the Tablets of the Divine Plan, revealed at a later stage, and in circumstances almost as critical as those which had accompanied the inception of the Faith in the West, and which may be designated as the Charter of the Plan with which He was to entrust them in the evening of His life, He, in a language still more graphic and in terms more definite than those used by either the Báb or Bahá’u’lláh, revealed the high distinction and the glorious work which America, and particularly the United States and Canada, was to achieve in both the Formative and Golden Ages of the Bahá’í Dispensation.
His references to the “extraordinary brilliancy” of the light which His Father’s Revelation was to shed in the West; His prediction that “the West will have replaced the East” “through the splendor” of that Faith; His specific prophecies regarding the future of the American continent, as the “land wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed” and “the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled,” and which “will lead all nations spiritually”; His even more specific tribute to the Great Republic of the West which He proclaims to be “worthy of being the first to build the Tabernacle of the Most Great Peace and proclaim the oneness of mankind,” to be “equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will adorn the pages of history, to become the envy of the world, and be blest in both the East and the West”; His yet more startling words addressed to the followers of the Faith in that Republic, referring to them as “apostles of Bahá’u’lláh,” characterizing their mission as “unspeakably glorious,” and assuring them that “should success crown your enterprise ... the throne of the Kingdom of God will, in the plenitude of its majesty and glory, be firmly established”; and finally, His soul-stirring assertion that “the moment this Divine Message is carried forward by the American believers from the shores of America, and is propagated through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion,” and that “the whole earth” will “resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness”—all these, in conjunction with the explicit and detailed instructions embodied in His Tablets, in connection with the execution of their mission, may be regarded as having fixed the pattern, and revealed a measure of the glory, of the Plan itself, which, after His ascension, was to be collectively and formally prosecuted.
The creation of the administrative machinery of the Faith, according to the precepts laid down in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will and Testament, and on which, during the opening years of its Formative Age, the resources and attention of the trustees of the Plan were chiefly concentrated, provided, after several years of assiduous labor, the agencies for its proper and systematic execution. The first stage of that enterprise, which had been held in abeyance, for well nigh twenty years, while the administrative institutions of the Faith were slowly taking shape and were being perfected, was finally launched during the last decade of that same century whose opening years will be associated with the earliest though veiled intimation of the phenomenal destiny which the followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in the New World are to fulfill. The successful consummation of the first stage of that long-deferred Mission, made possible through the brilliant execution of a Seven Year Plan, embracing the entire Western Hemisphere, synchronized with, and was befittingly commemorated through, the historic celebrations that marked the termination of that century.
The opening decade of the second Bahá’í century coincides with the launching of the second Seven Year Plan, destined alike to consolidate the exploits that have shed such lustre on the last years of the preceding century, and to carry the Plan a stage further across the ocean to the shores of the Old World, and to communicate, through the operation of its regenerative power, its healing influence to the peoples of the most afflicted, impoverished and agitated continent of the globe. We who stand on the threshold of this gigantic and two-fold undertaking are unable to discern the exact course which its immediate operation, both on the home front and in fields far from the scene of its earliest victories, is destined to take, the setbacks it may suffer, or the triumphs it must ultimately achieve. The objectives, however, which must orientate its prosecutors, and arouse them to a higher pitch of concerted endeavor, are clearly defined, and by no means beyond their collective power to achieve.
The double task already undertaken to enlarge the basis of the administrative structure of the Faith throughout the states and provinces of the North American continent and throughout Latin America, and to proclaim its truths and principles to the masses, should be relentlessly pursued, whilst the range of the operation of the Plan is being steadily enlarged. The administrative centers—foci at which the ever expanding activities of a rising Order must converge—whose total number had not exceeded forty at the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visit to America, which at the inception of the first Seven Year Plan had risen to three hundred, and had swelled to over a thousand ere the expiry of the first Bahá’í century, should through resolute effort and careful planning, be continually and speedily multiplied. Particular care should be constantly exercised to enable the groups scattered throughout the length and breadth of the states and provinces of the United States and Canada to attain Assembly status, and assume gradually the responsibilities and functions assigned to them in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and the Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. A corresponding increase in the number of such centers throughout both Central and South America should likewise be aimed at. Bolder measures designed to proclaim the verities of the Faith, its tenets, its claims and the purpose of its institutions, through the press and radio, through displays, exhibits and conferences, and through a wider dissemination of its literature in English, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a more convincing presentation of its aims and teachings to the leaders of public opinion, should, moreover, be seriously and systematically undertaken not only in the mother country but also throughout the Latin Republics where the structural basis of Bahá’u’lláh’s embryonic Order has already been established.
Collateral with this process of consolidation in North, Central and South America, a special effort should be exerted to bring to a final conclusion the construction of the most holy Temple which will ever be erected by the followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and whose inception, forty-three years ago, synchronized with the erection in the city of Ishqábád of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of the Bahá’í world. The completion of the interior ornamentation of the Temple, following upon its exterior decoration, and fitting it for the purposes for which it was ordained, and coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of its inception, will, in itself, pave the way for the gradual erection of those Dependencies which are designed to supplement the functions which the Central Edifice is destined to perform, and whose future development must needs be provided for during successive stages in the unfoldment of the Divine Plan itself.
Parallel with this double process of consolidation and construction particular attention should be devoted to the provision of the necessary means whereby the newly fledged centers in the Dominion of Canada and throughout the Republics of Latin America can be coordinated and further consolidated, through the formation of three National Spiritual Assemblies, designed to participate in time in the international elections that must precede the constitution of the First Universal House of Justice. The erection of these three pillars, raising to eleven the number of existing National Spiritual Assemblies, which are to be designated in future as Secondary Houses of Justice, and are designed to support the highest legislative body in the administrative hierarchy of the Faith, will, as the Divine Plan continues to unfold, be supplemented by the formation of similar bodies which, as they multiply, will, of necessity, broaden the basis and reinforce the representative character, of the supreme elective institution which, in conjunction with the institution of Guardianship, must direct and coordinate the activities of a world-encircling Faith. Through the formation of these National Spiritual Assemblies, as the implications of the Divine Plan gradually unfold in the coming years, the American Bahá’í Community will, in addition to its missionary activities throughout five continents and the islands of the seven seas, be contributing directly to the laying of the foundation, and hastening the formation, of an institution which, when constituted, will have consummated the threefold process involved in the erection of the total structure of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.