The progress achieved in recent years, and particularly since the inception of the Ten-Year Plan, by both the German and Austrian Bahá’í communities, in the field of teaching and administrative spheres of Bahá’í activity, has been such as to evoke feelings of deep and abiding gratitude in my heart, and to excite the admiration of their sister communities in both the East and the West.
Emerging more than a decade ago, from a prolonged period of adversity, which served to purge, discipline and spiritually quicken the nations to which these communities belong; abundantly demonstrating, throughout the afflictive trial they underwent, the sterling qualities of their faith and the depth of their unalterable devotion to the Cause they have espoused; firmly reestablishing, on the morrow of that ordeal, the institutions of an Administrative Order which had been temporarily disrupted and suffered an eclipse during the years of repression, suffering and confusion; embarking, at a later period, and in concert with Bahá’í communities the world over, on the Ten-Year Plan, designed to carry them a stage further on the road leading them to their high destiny—the members of these communities are now, both individually and collectively, fully engaged in the discharge of their sacred and heavy responsibilities—responsibilities which they cannot shirk and which I feel confident, they will nobly and fully discharge.
The third phase of the Plan which they now have entered must witness such an acceleration in the tempo of Bahá’í activity, in the various fields assigned to them, and such a depth of consecration to the tasks they have shouldered, as shall throw into shade every evidence of the valour displayed during the infancy of the Faith in both of these countries.
The virgin territories alloted to your assembly, under the Ten-Year Plan, must be carefully watched over, and the prizes won in those fields must be constantly enriched, at whatever cost, through the dispatch of a larger number of pioneers and a more adequate provision for the needs, both material and spiritual, of those valiant souls who, by the very nature of their services, constitute the vanguard of the future army of Bahá’u’lláh which must, in the days to come be raised up in those territories. The homefront, the reservoir which must be constantly replenished if the aid given to these pioneers is to prove ultimately adequate and effective, must be made the object of the solicitude and of the anxious deliberations of the members of your Assembly. The remarkable success recently achieved, through the multiplication of Bahá’í assemblies, groups and isolated centres, must be followed up by a corresponding increase in the number of the avowed and active supporters of the Faith—the bedrock on which the strength and stability of the entire community must rest. The preliminary stages designed to launch the greatest enterprise confronting the German Bahá’í Community—the construction of the Mother Temple of Europe—must be swiftly and energetically undertaken, particularly in connexion with the ultimate settlement of the issue of the Temple site, and the provision of the necessary authorization for the laying of its foundations and the erection of its structure.
Another matter of vital importance, and destined to exert a lasting influence on the immediate destinies of the German Bahá’í Community, is the adoption of the necessary measures for the introduction of the Faith into neighbouring territories, such as the translation of Bahá’í literature into Russian and into the languages in use in the Baltic states, and the exploration of every avenue designed to enable German Bahá’í pioneers to launch this vast, this historic and meritorious campaign beyond the eastern confines of their native land.
The process of incorporating firmly established Bahá’í local assemblies, which has so far been regrettably slow, must be further stimulated, in order to consolidate the legal foundations of the administrative structure of the Faith in that land as well as in Austria.
The institution of the National Fund, whose fundamental importance cannot be exaggerated, must receive a wider and fuller measure of support from the rank and file of the believers, in order that it may be enabled to provide more adequately than heretofore for the pressing material needs of the infant institutions of the Faith, now faced with such tremendous and inescapable responsibilities.
Particular attention must, moreover, be devoted to the vital and urgent needs of the Faith in Austria, where a nascent community is heroically struggling to establish its independent national Bahá’í existence on a secure foundation.
Constant encouragement, by whatever means possible, must, furthermore, be given the suppressed and isolated local communities in Eastern Germany, now so sadly detached from the general body of the followers of the Faith in that land, and any assistance, lying in your power, must be extended to them for the purpose of enabling some of their members to penetrate into the remaining territories assigned to your assembly under the provisions of the Ten-Year Plan.
The stalwart German Bahá’í Community, ranking among the oldest and certainly one of the most eminent, communities in Europe; firmly implanted in the heart of that continent; constituting one of the leading strongholds of the Faith within its confines; reassured, time and again, through the glowing promises given it, in unmistakable language, by the Centre of the Covenant, in the early years of that community’s existence; blessed so abundantly through His memorable visit to its homeland; hardened and chastened in the school of adversity; emerging triumphant over those adversaries that sought so ineffectively to arrest its march, dim its hopes, and disrupt its foundations; fully equipped through more than three decades of Bahá’í administrative experience—such a community finds itself, at this historic hour, fully and hopefully launched upon an enterprise which, if successfully carried out, will enable it to bring to a conclusion a chapter of the utmost significance in the evolution of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in that land.