The designs for these sacred Fanes, to be raised to the glory of the Founder of our Faith, and dedicated to the worship of the one true God, have, in the case of the Australian and African Temples, been already executed by the Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, whilst the design for the German Temple has been completed by the German architect, Teuto Rocholl—all three of which will be exhibited, for the first time, to the assembled delegates at the thirteen historic Bahá’í National Conventions being held for the first time during this year’s Ridván Festival. The excavation of the foundations of the African Temple has actually commenced, whilst plans and specifications are being prepared by a well-known firm in Kampala. The construction of the Australian Temple has, moreover, been placed in the hands of a reliable Sydney architect, who will have completed the detailed drawings and specifications by the first of Ridván, and contemplates beginning work on the foundations by next June and completing the building by March, 1959.
To the National and Local Spiritual Assemblies, more than a thousand in number, to groups as well as individuals, in every continent of the globe, and in whatever island they may be laboring in the service of this glorious Faith, I direct an earnest plea to arise, now that the prodigious task of the purchase of more than forty national Hazíratu’l-Quds, and the establishment of Bahá’í national endowments in nearly fifty countries, has been triumphantly consummated and display, at this hour when the global Spiritual Crusade has just passed the third-way point, the self-same solidarity, generosity, tenacity and single-mindedness which they have consistently demonstrated since its inauguration four years ago, which have insured the success of some of the most arduous enterprises launched under the Ten-Year Plan, and which, in the decades preceding its inception, have brought to a glorious culmination the task of erecting the first two Mashriqu’l-Adhkárs of the Bahá’í world.
KNIGHTS OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH AND HEROIC PIONEERS
A special tribute, I feel, should be paid in this survey of worldwide Bahá’í achievements, to the heroic band of pioneers, and particularly to the company of the Knights of Bahá’u’lláh, who, as a result of their indomitable spirit, courage, steadfastness, and self-abnegation, have achieved in the course of four brief years, in so many of the virgin territories newly opened to His Faith, a measure of success far exceeding the most sanguine expectations. Such a success, reflected in both the numerical strength of these territories and the range and solidity of the achievements of the Bahá’í crusaders responsible for their opening and development, has surpassed to an unbelievable extent the goals set for them under the Ten-Year Plan.
To Uganda, opened on the eve of the Global Crusade, where the number of the avowed adherents of the Faith has now passed the eleven hundred mark, and the number of Bahá’í centers exceeds one hundred and eighty, to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Gambia where the number of the believers has reached five hundred and three hundred respectively, must be added Mentawai Islands, where adult Bahá’ís now number over eleven hundred; the British Cameroons, with well-nigh three hundred adult Bahá’ís; Mauritius with over seventy; Basutoland with over fifty; Ruanda-Urundi and the Seychelles, each with over thirty; Spanish Morocco, Reunion Island, the French Cameroons, British Togoland, French Togoland, Sikkim, the Canary Islands, British Guiana, Cape Verde Islands, Ashanti Protectorate, Swaziland, South Rhodesia, each with over twenty; and Key West, French Equatorial Africa, Cook Islands, Balearic Islands, French Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, Cyprus, Morocco International Zone, Samoa Islands, Mariana Islands, New Hebrides Islands, Solomon Islands, Portuguese Timor, Bechuanaland, Northern Territories Protectorate, Bahama Islands, and Brunei, each with between ten and twenty.