Japan Will Turn Ablaze!

To the First National Convention of the Bahá’ís of North East Asia—1957

To the Delegates and Visitors assembled at the Convention of the Bahá’ís of North-East Asia.

With feelings of exultation, joy, and pride I hail the convocation of this history-making Convention of the Bahá’ís of North-East Asia, paving the way for the emergence of a Regional Spiritual Assembly with an area of jurisdiction embracing Japan, Korea, Formosa, Macao, Hong Kong, Hainan Island and Sakhalin Island.

This auspicious event, which posterity will regard as the culmination of a process initiated, half a century ago, in the capital city of Japan, under the watchful care and through the direct inspiration of the Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, marks the opening of the second chapter in the history of the evolution of His Faith in the North Pacific area. Such a consummation cannot fail to lend a tremendous impetus to its onward march in the entire Pacific Ocean, a march which will now, no doubt, be greatly accelerated by the simultaneous emergence of the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of South-East Asia and of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of New Zealand.

I particularly welcome the establishment of this highly important institution in the capital city of Japan, as it affords a splendid opportunity for the diffusion of the Lights of the Faith, and the erection of the structure of its Administrative Order, among a people representing the overwhelming majority of the yellow race, living in the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and in a country regarded as one of the strongholds of the Buddhist Faith.

I feel a warm tribute should be paid, on this historic occasion, to the members of the American Bahá’í Community, as well as to their elected national representatives, who have, for so long and so devotedly, promoted the interests of the Faith in that country, and, in recent years in its neighbouring islands.

I call upon the Regional Spiritual Assembly now being formed to signalize its birth through the initiation of a subsidiary Six-Year 81 Plan, designed to swell the number of the adherents of the Faith throughout the area of its jurisdiction; to multiply the groups, the isolated centers and the local spiritual assemblies; to incorporate all firmly grounded local spiritual assemblies; to obtain recognition from the civil authorities for the Bahá’í Marriage Certificate, as well as the Bahá’í Holy Days; to inaugurate a national Bahá’í Fund; to consolidate the work initiated in the newly opened territories; to lend an impetus to the translation, the publication, and dissemination of Bahá’í Literature in divers languages; to establish Summer Schools, and Bahá’í burial grounds; to propagate the Faith throughout the smaller islands of Japan; and to acquire a plot to serve as the site of the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár of North-East Asia.

May the blessings of Bahá’u’lláh be showered, in an ever-increasing measure, on those newly emerged Communities now holding aloft, so steadfastly and so valiantly, the banner of His Faith, and may the outcome of their collective efforts illuminate its annals, and contribute to a notable degree to the consolidation of the institutions 82 of the Bahá’í embryonic World Order now being erected throughout the length and breadth of so vast, so turbulent, and yet so promising, an area of the globe.