The Ten Year Plan which your Assembly has now launched, in its capacity as the elected representatives of the Canadian Bahá’í Community—the recognized allies of the chief executors of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Divine Plan—and which constitutes so important a phase of the global Spiritual Crusade on which the followers of the Faith have embarked, marks the inauguration of the initial stage in the unfoldment of the glorious Mission of this community, a Mission which will enable it to implant, in collaboration with its sister community in the Great Republic of the West, and with the support of the Latin American Bahá’í communities associated in the execution of the Divine Plan, the standard of the Faith in all continents of the Globe.
TWO PARAMOUNT OBJECTIVES
Of all the objectives of this momentous Ten Year Plan, with which the immediate destinies of this firmly-grounded, fully consecrated, high-minded, spiritually quickened community are so closely linked, the purchase of the site of the Mother Temple of the Dominion of Canada and the settlement of pioneers in the thirteen virgin territories and islands, eleven of which are situated in North America and two in the South Pacific Ocean, may be regarded as the most important.
Prompt and effective measures must, no matter how great the sacrifice involved, be taken to ensure that, ere the termination of the first two years of the Plan, these two paramount objectives, which constitute the opening phase of the Plan, will have been fully attained. The entire community must arise, as it has never risen before, to meet the challenge of the present hour. The time fixed for the achievement of the initial victories of the Plan is admittedly brief. The prizes to be won in distant fields, under the most trying circumstances, by the members of a community so youthful, so circumscribed in number and resources, are so precious that none of them can as yet even dimly imagine their transcendent glory. On the homefront, as well as in the far-off islands of the Pacific Ocean, in both the teaching and administrative fields, the Canadian Bahá’í Community must labour incessantly in anticipation of the fulfilment of the inspiring prophecies made by the Centre of the Covenant Who, repeatedly and in unmistakable language, promised to this community a glorious future, and predicted both the material and spiritual advancement of the nation of which it forms a part.
FUTURE ROLE CONTINGENT ON ACHIEVEMENTS IN THIS PLAN
On the success of this initial stage in the unfoldment of its Mission in foreign fields—a stage which will witness the departure of the Canadian pioneers from their homeland, in the northern regions of the Western Hemisphere, to the South Sea Islands—must depend the degree to which they will be active in days to come in other continents of the globe and their neighbouring islands. As the chosen allies of the chief executors of the Master’s Divine Plan, they shoulder a responsibility which is at once staggering, sacred and inescapable. The greater their exertions, the more abundant will be the outpouring of celestial grace vouchsafed to them by the Author of the Plan Himself, Who in His immortal Tablets has more than once assured of His unfailing aid all who arise to serve His Father’s Cause.