A TRIPLE RESPONSIBILITY
This triple bounty vouchsafed the Community of the Most Great Name, scattered over the face of the planet, calls for tremendous, immediate, concerted exertion by the assembled believers in order adequately to discharge this triple responsibility. First, redoubled consecration to the pioneering task, particularly in the Pacific area emphasized in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, raising thereby, ere adjournment of the Conference, the number of territories opened to the Faith or assigned pioneers for immediate settlement to above two hundred. Second, the demonstration of increasing self-sacrifice through the inauguration of Funds for the purchase of land for future Temples on the Asiatic continent and in the Antipodes, in Baghdád, New Delhi and Sydney. I am contributing three thousand pounds for the furtherance of these meritorious enterprises. Third, earnest consultation by representatives of the Persian and Iráqí National Assemblies, directly concerned with the holy task, with the assembled Hands of the Cause on ways and means to conduct a thorough investigation to ensure purchase of the holy places, particularly the site of the Síyáh-Chál, the cradle of the Revelation to the Author of the Faith, as well as the identification and transfer to Bahá’í cemeteries of the bodies of the relatives of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, constituting vital objectives of the Ten-Year Plan.
I am ardently hoping, fervently supplicating that this epochal Conference, setting the seal on the celebration of the second Bahá’í Jubilee, may contribute in an unprecedented degree through the character of its deliberations, the solidity of its achievements, the scope of its accomplishments, to the ultimate attainment of the shining goals of the World Crusade, destined to culminate in the not far distant Most Great Jubilee associated with the hundredth anniversary of the assumption by Bahá’u’lláh of His prophetic office.
[7 October 1953]
Hands at New Delhi Conference to Aid in Attaining Goals
On the eve of the conclusion of the festivities commemorating the centenary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh’s ministry, I am moved to direct the following specific message to the Hands assembled at the conference. In grateful recognition of the multiple bounties showered in rapid succession upon the army of the Lord of Hosts during the course of the Holy Year, auspiciously ushered in through the proclamation of the objectives of the World Crusade, whose opening months witnessed the convocation in the heart of the African continent of the first Intercontinental Teaching Conference; whose climax was signalized by the simultaneous holding in the heart of North America of the Intercontinental Conference of the Western Hemisphere, the dedication of the Mother Temple of the West and the launching of the Ten-Year Plan; whose record has been ennobled by two additional intercontinental gatherings, successively convened in the European and Asiatic continents, all eleven Hands are called upon to arise to enhance the abiding value of their strenuous, exemplary labors during the last twelve months, constituting the initial chapter in their steadily unfolding world mission.
The hour is propitious on the morrow of the last intercontinental conference to gird your loins for yet another, still wider dispersal, extending over one or two months and embracing Asia, Africa and Australasia, for the purpose of establishing close contact with the national assemblies, advising and assisting local assemblies and individuals to attain the goals of the globe-girdling Plan.