Messages to America

The reports recently received from various sources, regarding the sad conditions prevailing among the members of the sorely-stricken, long-suffering Bahá’í communities in Germany and Burma, are of such a distressing nature as to merit the energetic, the immediate, and collective intervention of their fellow-workers in lands which have providentially been spared the horrors of invasion and all the evils and miseries attendant upon it. Upon the American Bahá’í community, in particular, which throughout this prolonged and bloody conflict, has of all its sister communities in East and West, enjoyed the greatest immunity and been privileged not only to maintain and preserve its institutions, but to prosecute so successfully a Plan of such magnitude and significance, a special responsibility now rests—a responsibility which, despite its manifold and pressing duties in the Western Hemisphere, it can neither afford to neglect nor ignore.

Particularly in the heart of the European continent, where the present turmoil, suffering and destitution are mysteriously paving the way for the revival of a Faith which the Beloved Himself has unequivocally prophesied, where a once flourishing community is struggling to fulfil the high hopes entertained for it by Him, and where the prosecutors of the Divine Plan, are to lend their direct and systematic assistance when launching the second stage of their world mission, must the American believers contribute the major share in the work of rehabilitation which the followers of Bahá’u’lláh must arise to perform. 85

Through the extension of whatever financial assistance is feasible, through the provision and distribution of adequate literature, through the initiation of any measures, official or otherwise, which they can undertake for the protection, reinstatement and revival of a greatly-tested, highly promising and much loved community, the American believers have the golden opportunity of adding a fresh chapter to the brilliant record of their past international services to the Cause of God.

Nor should the urgency of the task in far-away Burma, where a flourishing community had furnished so shining an example of Bahá’í fellowship and solidarity, be underestimated. The spirit which its remnant has displayed after so many years of persecution, dispersion and danger, merits the widest measure of encouragement and support, both moral and financial. Pressed as the American Bahá’í community must be by the twofold obligation of proclaiming the verities of their Faith to the American public and of consolidating the vast enterprises initiated throughout Latin America, the stalwart and privileged followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in North America cannot allow so great an opportunity to advance the vital international interests of His Cause to slip from their grasp. I feel confident that in the discharge of this additional task they will exhibit those same traits that have distinguished their stewardship for so many years to so glorious a Cause.

December 21, 1945